Wednesday seems to be the one day that the Apprentice manages to get home from university at our normal supper hour. (It's a long commute and most nights she gets back later.)
So Mama Squirrel decided to add some extras to the small package of sausage that was waiting for us in the slow cooker. Along with the sausage and a few reheated sweet potatoes, we had hot corn bread and a can of baked beans.
Also some last-minute homemade vanilla pudding, which went into small bowls, still pretty hot. Solution: topping each bowl with a quarter-cup of frozen blueberries, and refrigerating for about twenty minutes. Guess what? It worked. Quicker than you would think, the blueberries were thawed and the pudding had cooled off.
Here's the recipe, in case you don't have one.
Vanilla Pudding, from Betty Crocker's Cookbook
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
2 cups milk (I used a can of 2% evaporated milk, thinned with water to make 2 cups)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tbsp. margarine or butter (I used less--I don't like it greasy)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in 2-quart saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir at least half of the hot mixture gradually into egg yorks; stir into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat. Stir in margarine/butter and vanilla. Pour into dessert dishes, refrigerate (and top with frozen berries if you're in a hurry). Makes 4 servings (or 5 if you stretch it).
My note: if you're out of eggs or in a huge hurry, you can skip the egg yolks. But they do give a better flavour to vanilla or butterscotch pudding.
3 comments:
I really do so enjoy your blog. Yours is one of the VERY few I visit frequently. I am so VERY frugal and practical and cook a LOT and LOVE Charlotte Mason and I just so enjoy your posts. What had I never thought of doing the vanilla pudding thing? What a great, simple, quick dessert idea. We have blueberry bushes which finally produced enough this summer, for the first time, that I have a lot in the freezer. I've been trying to think of a "cheap" dessert using blueberries. Thanks for the idea (among all the many others!)
Deneen in Southeast, Tennessee
Hi Deneen,
Wow, thank you so much! I'm glad to know the blueberry idea was helpful. We got a really good deal on frozen fruit awhile back too, so the freezer's been a bit overloaded with blueberries.
Another easy way to use frozen blueberries is to cook them (stove or microwave) into a pancake syrup or dessert topping--thickened with a bit of cornstarch, sweetened or not, whichever you like. We have layered that sort of "fruit goop" with yogurt and graham crackers or maybe bits of leftover cake, as one big dessert or in small fancy bowls.
You're very welcome. I wish I had remembered to try the blueberry syrup over a plain (vanilla) un-iced cake I made a week or so ago. I put sweetened strawberries out of the freezer over mine but I need to try blueberries the next time. Over graham crackers or yogurt would be good, too! YUM!
Deneen
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